Coming out from a long Radio Survivor posting hiatus (apologies) and rummaging around for some good classical sounds, I have chanced on Sangeet – Classical Music from the Indian sub-continent, over at wonderful WPRB in Princeton, New Jersey. This morning (Saturday, November 18) the show gave its listeners a generous hit of the incomparable Ustad Mashkoor Ali Khan, whose voice and style just blow me away.
The languorousness of the sounds, the exquisitely long lead-in notes, I listen to this stuff and feel like the protagonist in Satyajit Ray’s 1958 classic, The Music Room; except of course I am the not the bankrupt lord of a fading Bengali princely estate, much as I might feel that way on occasion.
If you are looking for more of that extended, sensual sound, KPFA’s Sunday classical show piano ran a great performance of the “Tranquilisssimo” of Henryk Goreki’s Third Symphony, the vocal solo sung by Dawn Upshaw, who I suddenly realized I don’t hear enough about these days. Anyway, that edition of the show is probably available for another week, so give it a listen while you can.
